Friday, August 12, 2011

Syria: Every Hour A Martyr. Every Day A Massacre!

Assad admits mistakes, promises reform, and kills more people. To the revolutionaries, his actions speak louder than his words, and we definitely get the message. That’s why the revolution continues.

Thursday August 11, 2011

19 protesters were killed today by Assad security forces in Deir Ezzor (3), Homs’ Al-Bayadah neighborhood (5) and Homs’ Al-Qseir suburb (11) near the border with Lebanon … Dozens were arrested in Al-Suwaida City following a sit-in near the Engineers Union. The move comes midst increasing unrest in the city where the majority population belongs to the minority Druze community...

Protestors hit the streets almost every day in July, all across Syria. On one day last month, an activist who wanted to be called Ahmed, said another anti-regime march was held in the town of Qatana. The protesters were mostly Sunni Muslims, but with a mix of other religions.

… there remain military units in Hama's Assi Square, scene of the massive protests that roiled Assad's regime for weeks. It's a no-go zone for civilians. There are also clusters of tanks at several key locations around Hama, including in front of the city's two main hospitals, Al-Hourani and Al-Bader, which residents say have been emptied of patients.

Western diplomats say UN Deputy Political Affairs Chief Oscar Fernandez-Taranco told a closed-door Security Council session on August 10 that nearly 2,000 civilians have been killed in Syria since antigovernment protests began in March. Fernandez-Taranco also was quoted as saying there has been no letup in the killing of protesters since last week when the Security Council called for an "immediate" halt to the violence.

Assad admits mistakes, promises reform, and kills more people. His honeyed words are meant for an international audience as equally afraid of change in Syria as Assad’s own domestic supporters. But protesters want change come what may, not because they are naive or fanatic, but because they have long learned that when your rulers are fiends, going through the Hell might be the only way to get to liberty. When the only choice the Assads are willing to give is “either us or chaos,” and when our repeated attempts to maneuver around that has been continuously undermined through nonstop repressions, perhaps it’s about time we embraced chaos and learned how to manage it as we go along.

Protesters continue to raise slogans celebrating national unity, while Assad supporters and loyalists play the sectarian card:

But perhaps even more painful than the physical damage, residents say, is the humiliation: the graffiti Assad's troops left all over the main streets, much of which is considered blasphemous and deeply offensive to this religiously conservative majority-Sunni Muslim city. "There is no God but Bashar" is scrawled in black paint in Souk al-Farwatiye, across the street from the vast, imposing white stone structure that is the ruling Baath Party headquarters in the city. "God Bashar and Maher Mohammad," reads another sign, referring to Assad's younger brother Maher, commander of the despised 4th Division, responsible for much of the bloodshed over the past five months. The graffiti equates Bashar Assad to God and his brother to the Prophet Muhammad. "God wants Bashar," "Assad's lions passed through here" and "We choose three: God, Bashar and Maher," read other signs, near anti-regime graffiti that has been scribbled over. Some messages are chilling in their simplicity: "If you return, we return." (Read more)

The reports below detail in various ways the linkages betwen the Assads and Jihadist groups and networks. But they all conclude with the prediction-cum-wish that, sooner or later, the Jihadists will turn against the Assads, in a case of the chicken coming home to roost. What they fail to understand here is the level of control and infiltration the Assads security machine has achieved over these groups. The Assads have used these networks not only to produce a cover story for the assassination of Rafic Al-Hairir, but also, following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, to conduct a number of staged attacks in Damascus itself, including an attack on the U.S. Embassy in September of 2006, so that they can paint themselves as victims of the very terror networks they were an are still busy supporting. Organizations like Fatah Al-Islam and Jund Al-Sham, if they are not direct creations of the Syrian mukhabarat, then they have shortly been infiltrated by them.

Reports of involvement of Jihadists in the Syrian situation at this stage might still be exaggerated, and the actual involvement remains a fringe phenomenon, but the Assads’ security chiefs are doing everything they can at this stage to enlist the support of these elements in order to justify their increasingly violent and bloody crackdown, and further consolidate their support base.

As part of its media campaign to justify sending army troops to Deir Ezzor, Syria’s official TV station interviewed a loyalist tribal leader, and showed footage of loyalists chanting for Bashar while brandishing AK-47s and shooting into the air!!! The intervention was justified as a necessary step to protect the unarmed population from armed gangs!!! http://youtu.be/l37zfAWzRbE

Hama: despite the continued siege of Hama City and ongoing military operations in the larger province, protests continued: in Kafar Zitahttp://youtu.be/30KKYmxTqGgHilfaya (funeral) http://youtu.be/-TaB0I5mDZE The people of Aleppo may not be rising up in mass numbers, but the revolutionaries have important sympathizers there, who are doing their part in supporting the besieged communities, such as Hama Cityhttp://youtu.be/mic89ArT5sA

About the Author

Ammar Abdulhamid is a liberal Syrian pro-democracy activist whose anti-regime activities led to his exile in September of 2005. He currently lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife, Khawla Yusuf, and their children, Oula (b.1986) and Mouhanad (b. 1990). He is the founder of the Tharwa Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to democracy promotion. His personal website and entries from his older blogs can be accessed here.